Arkansas Blog

Sifting the documents -- UPDATE

We thought we'd found most of the juicy Arkansas stuff in the Justice Department document drop on U.S. attorneygate -- how Bud Cummins' wife is ticked at Tim Griffin; how Cummins thinks Griffin and the White House screwed things up; how Justice claimed pregnancy prevented promotion of a Cummins assistant to interim U.S. attorney when calling pregnancy a disability can get you sued in private enterprise; the scheming to cook up a lie on Griffin's appointment, etc.

One of the most controversial judicial appointments was that of J. Timothy Griffin, whose strongest qualifications for being named the U.S. attorney for Arkansas were that he worked as Karl Rove's assistant in 2005 and did opposition research for the Republicans during the 2000 campaign. In an e-mail to Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House, Griffin passes along a few references that don't pop up on his resumé. "I am good friends with both chiefs of staff to [Arkansas Senators] Pryor and Lincoln. Pryor's chief of staff is a good friend and Lincoln's was my high school girlfriend," Griffin writes. "Should I say anything to them? I would hate for my senators to be told without my peeps knowing? [sic]" The former girlfriend reference—always a solid way into a job as U.S. attorney!

Page 45: Bud Cummins, the U.S. attorney fired to make room for the aforementioned high school swordsman, is a Rove crony [no, that's Griffin] who felt threatened enough by officials at the Justice Department that he resorted to fightin' words inspired by Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver.. "I was tempted to challenge him and say something movie-like such as 'are you threatening ME???,' but instead I kind of shrugged it off," Cummins writes in an e-mail describing Justice Department pressure on him to keep his mouth shut about his dismissal. "They feel like [if] any of us intend to continue to offer quotes to the press, or organize behind the scenes congressional pressure, then they would feel forced to somehow pull their gloves off."

And, you know, go all Raging Bull.

Pryor (Bob Russell) and Lincoln (Elizabeth Burks) chiefs of staff, y'all have some splainin' to do.

UPDATE: In case you didn't get it, we were joking about the needed explaining. Since Pryor and Lincoln have led opposition to this palace coup, whatever relationship Griffin might have had hasn't served him well.

But now add this statement from a Lincoln spokesman re Griffin's claim about Burks being his high school "girlfriend."

"Tim Griffin's claim is absolutely untrue," the spokesman said. Griffin, one year older than Burks, had one overlapping year with her at Magnolia High School. They never dated, the spokesman said.

Too late, sorry to say, for Warwick and David to ask him about this during taping of the "Unconventional Wisdom" show to be aired Friday night.

This form needs Javascript to display, which your browser doesn't support. Sign up here instead